KABUL – The Afghan human rights commission reported Wednesday that 28 civilians have been killed so far in NATO’s offensive on the Taliban stronghold of Marjah, and urged pro-government forces to take greater care in distinguishing between noncombatants and militants. (more…)

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — A series of satellite images taken over Sri Lanka’s former war zone showed the existence of large grave sites and evidence of possible mortar positions near areas that had been packed with trapped civilians, a human rights group said Thursday.

The release of the images was intended to challenge government claims that the military had ceased using heavy weapons in the final months of its war against the Tamil Tiger rebels in the jungles of the north to prevent large-scale civilian deaths.

U.N. reports show more than 7,000 civilians were killed in fighting between mid-January and May, when the military routed the remaining rebels. Rights groups accused the government of heavily shelling civilian areas and the rebels of holding tens of thousands of noncombatants as human shields. Both sides denied the accusations. (more…)

The nation’s top military officer said yesterday that no limits have been placed on the number or types of troops the new U.S. commander in Afghanistan can request as he seeks to carry out a counterinsurgency strategy there. (more…)

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — One of the highest-level European delegations to visit this war-torn country in years has failed to persuade the Sri Lankan government to declare a temporary truce with ethnic Tamil rebels.

“The government is not ready to enter into any kind of cease-fire with the terrorists,” he said. “It is my duty to protect the people of this country. I don’t need lectures from Western representatives,” he said in a speech distributed by his office and quoted by the agencies.

Increasingly impatient with foreign calls for a pause in its war against Tamil rebels, the Sri Lankan government denied entry to the Swedish foreign minister who had planned to take part in a European Union humanitarian mission, Sweden said Tuesday.

Sweden said it would recall its chief diplomat in Sri Lanka.

Carl Bildt, a former prime minister and now the country’s foreign minister, told reporters in Luxembourg that his visa application was turned down by Colombo and accused the Sri Lankan government of “exceedingly strange behavior.”

A SEVEN-YEAR-OLD Tamil girl with a severe leg injury was sharing a hospital bed yesterday with her elder sister, who had burns to her face. Their mother was dead and their father was in intensive care with a 50% chance of survival.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka – Indian officials took a demand for an immediate cease-fire in Sri Lanka’s civil war to the country’s president on Friday as the U.N. reported that nearly 6,500 ethnic Tamil civilians were killed in the last three months.

Concern for the safety of civilians trapped in the ever-shrinking war zone has increased in recent weeks as the government pushed ahead with its offensive to crush the rebels and end the nation’s quarter-century civil war.

The U.N. estimates that 50,000 people are still trapped in the war zone, spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said Friday.